Even though world agriculture produces a global food surplus, 6 million poor children tragically die of hunger and malnutrition illnesses each year. That grim report was given last week at a three-day planetary food summit in Rome.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates from 192 countries that the number of hungry people has passed 1 billion for the first time in history. Vulnerable children in undernourished Third World lands starve to death at a rate of 17,000 per day, he said.

"By 2050, our planet may be home to 9.1 billion people, over 2 billion more than now," he said. "We will need to grow 70 percent more food. Yet, the weather is becoming more extreme and unpredictable."

The secretary-general said it's imperative to curb global warming before worsening droughts, storms and erosion wipe out more fertile cropland, leading to terrible famines.

"There can be no food security without climate security," he said. Melting of Himalayan glaciers could damage the food supply of 1 billion Asians, he added. And African harvests could fall by half by 2020.

Clearly, all nations have a moral obligation to enhance agriculture and reduce human suffering - but delegates in Rome rejected a plea to increase international crop development funds to $44 billion per year. Instead, they passed a noble-sounding declaration that changes nothing.

Afterward, U.N. food chief Jacques Diouf protested that Western democracies poured trillions into bailing out mammoth banks in the financial crisis, but they gave only "crumbs" to save poor children.

During the summit, Pope Benedict XVI warned against a helpless attitude that little can be done to rescue weak, backward nations unable to feed their people. Such a feeling produces "resigned regret, if not downright indifference," he said.

Sadly, his warning seems to summarize results of the summit. But the world cannot keep averting its eyes while 6 million children starve every year.